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<back | home Super Size Me: A Film of Epic Portions by Liana Forest Director and Star: Morgan Spurlock Winner: Best Director, Sundance Film Fest Not Rated Ever wondered about the effects of a complete diet of fast food? Hold on to your tum for this terrifying journey through 30 days of a man eating nothing but McDonald’s, supplemented by interviews with present and former junk food addicts, gym teachers, kids, school food service staff, the Surgeon General, lawmakers and legislators. Filmmaker Spurlock, monitored by three doctors, a nutritionist, and his vegan chef girlfriend, sets out to discover whether there is anything to the claim that fast food is responsible for 37% of American children and teens being overweight and two thirds of adults overweight or obese. His rules are that he can only eat over the counter at McDonalds, three meals a day; he has to eat every item on the menu at least once, and accept Super Size portions if they are offered to him. The first few days are gut-wrenching, for audience as well as our hero, but after passing the "three-day hump" Spurlock is thoroughly addicted and feels terrible when not eating. We learn that McDonalds terms customers who eat there once a week, "heavy users," while those who eat 2-3 times a week are "super-heavy users." And an physician tells us that fast foods affect the brain similarly to heroin. In the opening scene children at a summer camp chant, "Kentucky Fried Chicken and a pizza, McDonalds, McDonalds, McDonalds!" A food service worker shows boxes of already prepared, processed foods, admitting she never cooks and a box-cutter is her best tool. A cafeteria director claims that teens are learning healthy choices even when all they choose are french fries. Balancing these horrors, however, is a profile of a Wisconsin school that has turned around the behavior of at-risk students through a low fat, low sugar, non-fried, fresh fruits and vegetable diet with no candy or sodas allowed on campus. Spurlock visits McDonalds in 20 American cities, noting Houston is #1 fattest in rates of obesity (by the end of the film, Detroit pulls into the lead). He tests kids for whose portraits they can recognize (Washington and Lincoln bomb out, but everyone knows Ronald McDonald), and adults for whether they can recite the pledge of allegiance (no) or the McDonald’s jingle (yes) without stumbling. The Surgeon General tells us that one out of every three children will develop type 2 (what used to be called "adult onset") diabetes, and if that happens before they are 15, they will lose up to 20 years of their life-span. Costs to combat this disease rose from $44 billion to $92 billion in the last decade. We experience a harrowing internal view of a stomach-shrinking surgery, which the two surgeons declare is the only known cure for diabetes. Meanwhile, Spurlock’s own health is going rapidly downhill. Pronounced in perfect shape by all his medical experts on every measure when he began his challenge, Spurlock is rapidly gaining weight, and is at risk for hypertension, and liver failure. He’s suffering loss of breath, depression, and heart palpitations. His girlfriend says he can’t get it up. On Day 21, his physicians are begging him to stop the diet. Man, I was rooting for them! Despite groans from the audience, Spurlock perseveres to the Last McSupper. See this film, then eat afterwards at a restaurant like Big Sky [in San Luis Obispo, or Sojourners in Santa Barbara or The Farmer and the Cook in Ojai] that serves fresh, local organic produce. But remember, a judge dismissed the lawsuit of two young girls weighing over 250 pounds each, because "it couldn’t be proved their weight gain was due to McDonald’s food;" and Congress passed legislation that make it more difficult to sue fast food companies for obesity reasons. <back | top^ |